Happy, happy, joy, joy

I had a bad weekend. There. I said it. I’m not sure what happened, but I ended up falling apart Sunday night after a really bad episode of OCD. My OCD is not severe, but it is enough to remind me that I have it. I don’t compulsively turn the light switches on and off, or lock and relock the doors (though I will check behind others in my house to make sure we’re all safe). I don’t wash my hands 10 times before I can do anything, although I am slightly germaphobic. I do, however, have a few odd behaviors that fall in the category of OCD.

I have to be able to see my floor. My room has a finite amount of space and I can’t handle clutter all over the floor. Even on laundry day I will rearrange piles of laundry on the bed to keep them off the floor. I’ve been known to start cleaning and end up rearranging furniture and everything else to get things just right.

My desk is a universe all its own. Sometimes I can work at my desk and not worry about extra papers lying about. Other times, I can’t even scroll my Facebook news feed until I clear my desk. And it’s not just moving stuff off of it. I have to clear it, dust it, and rearrange what stuff stays on it.

This weekend I was sewing, making a blouse to wear for a party. I caught myself stopping in the middle of a seam to rearrange my pins. I’ve never done that before. It kind of scared me. And as I engaged my sewing machine again I got to thinking. I had felt very anti-social all weekend. Several times I thought about texting a friend to come over but decided not to. I didn’t want anyone around. I felt like it would have thrown things out of whack somehow. The weird thing is that other people’s clutter doesn’t usually bother me, only my own.

This morning was much better than last night. I’m always telling people not to hate Mondays. It’s the start of a new week, a new opportunity to do something worthwhile. Today, Monday means I successfully fended off the demons of the weekend.

If you’re not sure if you have OCD (meaning it’s probably kind of mild if you do), you can try the screening quiz at psychcentral.com. It’s not a diagnostic tool, but it does give a likelihood based on your score. Scoring 12 or above means you likely have some type of obsessive compulsive disorder. I scored 17. Go figure.